Search The Register-Guard

archive

10

An experimental primary

State’s Independent Party conducts an online election

Appeared in print: Sunday, July 11, 2010, page G2

No minor party in Oregon has ever conducted a primary election before. No party of any description in Oregon, major or minor, has conducted an election via the Internet. No Oregon party has ever conducted a primary election at its own expense. The Independent Party of Oregon is currently doing all three. The experiment could change both elections and politics in the state and beyond.

Starting last week, the Independent Party’s 55,000 registered members began receiving mailed notices inviting them to cast electronic ballots to choose the party’s nominees for the November general election. Voters must cast ballots by July 30.

Each Independent voter will receive a pass code providing access to a ballot listing candidates seeking the party’s nomination for statewide office and in congressional and legislative districts. The election is being conducted for the party by the company that provides online remote voting services for members of the armed forces.

One flaw in the party’s plans is immediately apparent: Not everyone has access to a computer. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 72.3 percent of Oregon households have Internet connections, the 13th highest level of penetration in the nation. That still leaves more than a quarter of Oregonians unconnected.

Independent Party official Sal Peralta says party members without computers are encouraged to vote with the help of a friend or relative who has Internet service, or by visiting a public library. All forms of voting inconvenience voters to some degree — mailed ballots, for instance, require the purchase of a stamp — but the party’s primary could mark the dawn of an era in which access to the Internet is a condition of participation in the democratic process.

The problem of access is offset by potential gains in participation. Oregon’s other minor parties will choose their candidates at conventions, as they always have done. These gatherings are usually attended by a 50 or 100 party activists, with the great majority of party members having no say in the selections. The nation’s first and so far only Internet election, an Arizona Democratic primary in 2002, had a turnout rate of 11 percent. If the Independent Party’s primary matches that figure, its nominees will have been chosen by more than 6,000 members — a significant democratization of minor-party politics.

A second flaw is that some, perhaps many, voters have registered as Independents while their intent was to register as unaffiliated with any party. That’s a problem with the Independent label, not with the party’s primary process. The primary could serve to alert those voters who joined the party inadvertently.

Eighty-six candidates are seeking the Independent nomination. Most are Republicans or Democrats who hope to list the word “Independent” next to their name on the general election ballot — a new state law allows candidates to identify themselves as nominees of up to three parties. Republican Art Robinson and Democrat Peter DeFazio, for instance, are both on the Independent ballot as U.S. House of Representatives candidates in the 4th District.

Winning candidates may find that they’ll get more than the party’s nomination. In addition to casting votes for candidates, Independent primary voters will be invited to respond to a survey asking their opinions about party positions and priorities. The party will be able to present its nominees with the survey results, and say that the voters expect nominees to act in ways that are congruent with party members’ views. The ballot will thus become an instrument not only for the choice of candidates, but also the expression of policy preferences.

For Independents with Internet access, the process will be free, convenient and information-rich. Provided the process is secure and can avoid technical troubles, it could prove popular — not only among Independents, but among others who may begin to demand that their own parties, major and minor, conduct their primaries in a similar way. If the process being pioneered by the Independent Party spreads, elections and politics in Oregon may never be the same.